Khauf, on Amazon Prime, might be about demonic possession, but the real horror of the show is something far more sinister—terrible men. The show is quite unabashed in its depiction of lecherous men and how they make most women’s lives a living hell. The vengeful ghost itself is of an abusive man, and his so-called quest for ‘revenge’ is quite unjustified, if you think about it. Let us explore that in detail and also put the very questionable ending of Khauf under the microscope.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In The Show?
Anu gets scared after someone deliberately heckles her by pointing a laser at her while she returns to the ladies hostel one night through a dark alley. She gets further frustrated when the security guard taunts her for returning so late, even after seeing how anxious and panicky she is. She is finally relieved after seeing her friends inside, who have arranged a surprise birthday party for her. We meet the group: Rima, the eldest and also pregnant; Komal, most likely the youngest; Lana, a Northeastern girl who’s an air hostess; and Nicky, a rich outcast who has a stutter. Anu herself works at a hospital; she’s a nurse. She is about to leave the hostel and move into her own rented flat, and Lana is also supposed to move in with her. She is understandably elated, given she doesn’t have to return to the hostel at night through that back alley anymore. The location of the hostel is pretty remote and very much unsafe for women during the night in a post-Nirbhaya Delhi.
Six months later, the focus shifts to Madhuri, aka Madhu, who has come to Delhi from Gwalior. Her goal is to make it big in the city and also leave her traumatizing past behind. It is revealed that she was raped at a college function a year ago, which left her and her boyfriend Arun scarred forever. Arun now lives with the guilt of not being able to save his girlfriend, probably why he frequents the gym and takes steroids. It has also taken a toll on their relationship, as both of them are having trouble with intimacy, for different reasons. Madhu’s first priority is landing a job and finding a place to stay, given Arun’s flat is not exactly a good solution, given a few more single men also live there—although they’re on their best behavior when Madhu is around. Thanks to her friend, Bela, Madhu finds a call center job. It is actually a company where Bela’s boyfriend (and soon-to-be fiancé) Nakul also works, at a much higher post. Strangely enough, the mention of Nakul brings back horrible memories to Madhu. She remembers hearing the words “Nakul bhaiya” from that fateful day and suspects whether this is the same man who raped her, along with his two friends. Meanwhile, house hunting lands her at the Pragati working women’s hostel (the one we saw in the beginning), and given she doesn’t have many financial resources, Madhu has no choice but to take the empty room, no. 333. Interestingly, this was the room of Anu, who’s now dead. And for inexplicable reasons, Rima, Lana, Komal, and Nicky don’t ever get out of the hostel. They’re also very hostile towards Madhu and want her to leave. But Madhu makes it clear that she is not going to back down that easily.
Elsewhere in old Delhi, there’s someone called Hakim who claims to treat people with magical herbs and ingredients like scorpion oil, but his real motive is something else. The man is cursed and slowly dying, and to stay alive, he must kill young women by draining their blood. These women must be traumatized and weak, and Hakim needs their souls for himself. To dispose of the bodies, Hakim needs the assistance of two young men—Babban and Jeevan, aka Jeeva. The latter has been missing for a while, and his police constable mother, Ilu Mishra, is looking for her son. The police constable is good friends with the hostel warden, Gracie, who initially comes off as tough, but as show progress, you realize that she actually cares for the women who live in the hostel.
Is Nakul really the man who assaulted Madhu?
Khauf tricks both you and Madhu into believing Nakul Khanna is not the man who raped Madhu in Gwalior. He is deliberately presented as a green flag, which deceives you further, as all the men in the show are pretty much bad news, including Arun. When Madhu directly goes to confront Nakul, he denies everything and says he has never been to Gwalior. He then works his charm on Madhu to make her believe he’s a good guy. You have to remember here that Madhu is also going through other troubles at the same time. Her hostel mates are making her life hell, there’s supernatural activities going on in her room, and her relationship with Arun is constantly souring due to his inability to deal with the tragedy. It’s only natural for Madhu to feel safe around Nakul and even develop some feelings for him, as he is sort of projecting himself as the only man who truly cares for her. And Nakul is so deep into this pretense that he wouldn’t hesitate to make Bela uncomfortable by randomly asking Madhu to come to a party without her knowledge. His desire for Madhu is real, though; in fact, that’s the reason for her misfortune. When Nakul’s attempt to make Madhu fall for him with his fake niceties fails—even after they make out at a party—his real self comes out. It is the typical ‘I have done so much for you, why wouldn’t you accept my romantic advances?’ whining a lot of men usually do. What’s worse is the guy is so shameless that he tries justifying rape.
The confession happens while Nakul is giving Madhu a lift. She asks him to stop the car (because why would she spend another minute with her rapist?). But that hurts his ego and makes him angrier. He then stoops even lower by attempting to rape Madhu again and silence her for good this time around. Somehow, his two friends who also participated joined in. But the tables are turned on them when a heavily possessed Madhu brutally murders Nakul’s friends. She leaves Nakul for the time being.
Who is possessing Madhu?
It is the ghost from room 333 at the hostel. Madhu probably could have avoided getting possessed if she had decided to do away with Anu’s trunk inside her room. It is the ghost of Ilu Mishra’s son, Jeeva, who is the main villain of the show. As it turns out, Jeeva was the man who used to harass Anu and the other girls with his laser. He was the kind of man who thought it was okay to objectify women, as all of them were his playthings. Not to mention, all the women (read, feminists) were no better than prostitutes to him. Khauf takes us back in time, and we get to see the extent of how horrible Jeeva really was. Thanks to Gracie being his mother’s friend, he used to do some odd jobs like painting the walls around the hostel. However, the girls accidentally discovered his laser pointer and realized it was him. They banished him from the hostel, which agitated him.
On New Year’s Eve, the girls were partying at Anu’s new place. But a miscommunication with her landlord, followed by a verbal spat, resulted in Anu getting evicted. The girls had no choice but to shift the party to their hostel. For Anu, it got worse as she found out her boyfriend was not at all serious about their relationship and had gotten engaged to someone else. While returning to the hostel, she got lasered again, and a frustrated Anu taunted Jeeva, saying he lacked the guts to come in front of them. This infuriated Jeeva, who barged into the hostel in a very drunken state and started assaulting Anu and the other women. Gracie was out, and the security guard was a no-show, which gave Jeeva the courage. However, the girls got the better of him. They would have still spared him, but then Jeeva had to stretch it further by spewing more derogatory insults, which agitated Rima, who decided to teach the man a lesson by burning him alive. That was obviously a spur-of-the-moment thing, and the girls started to panic as Gracie and Mishra couldn’t have picked a worse time to arrive. In a manner of desperate measure, they hid Jeeva’s body in Anu’s trunk. But the problem was, Jeeva was still alive, meaning there was a chance that he could still be saved. It’s another matter that he was undeserving of rescue, and the girls ensured that he took his last breath in the trunk. They eventually disposed of the body in the river, which the police found many months later. Jeeva’s spirit stayed inside the hostel, though, which stopped the girls from going out of the hostel. From Lana getting strangled to Komal getting scratched at her cheek, it became more evident. For Anu and Nicky, it was even more horrible. Anu did die in a road accident, but we do get to see how Jeeva’s ghost played the catalyst in it. Poor Nicky did get out and reached the hospital, thanks to the doctors coming up with the plan to keep her sedated. Sadly, that was not enough to save her from the horrifying death where her head literally exploded while inside the CT scan machine.
The moral dilemma Of The Show
Khauf presents a very interesting moral dilemma to its audience. Without taking care of Jeeva’s ghost, the girls can’t get out of the hostel. To do so, they have no other choice but to harm Madhu, taking Hakim’s suggestion. Thanks to how traumatized she already is, Madhu perfectly fits into the kind of woman Hakim needs for himself. I’m not entirely sure whether Hakim was aware of Madhu’s past, but I would like to believe he was. Watching Lana and the girls spiking Madhu’s tea and soup with the scorpion poison might make you despise the girls, but they also don’t really have a choice. Especially for Rima, the hostel is no place for her to have children.
What happens to Madhu?
Once the fact that Madhu is, in fact, possessed becomes clear for the other characters—Arun and Dr. Shohini’s daughter Kiara mainly—it comes down to whether Madhu is going to survive or not. As per the instructions, the girls successfully manage to send her to the guy, but thanks to Mishra arriving at the right place at the very right time, Madhu survives. Unfortunately, Hakim still manages to escape by convincing Mishra that she can still communicate with her dead son.
Well, Hakim was not exactly lying, as Mishra does get to do that with a tied-up Madhu at the hostel. Despite Arun trying his best to keep Madhu contained, she gets away. He is no match for the demonic force inside her anyway. At the hostel, Lana manages to get a hold of Madhu and successfully pour the remaining scorpion poison down her throat. Deep inside the mind, a tussle happens between Madhu and the spirit, but she turns out to be strong enough to fight it off. The spirit gets out, in a very apocalyptic manner, destroying half of the hostel. Mishra and Gracie both die in the chaos, while Hakim attacks Lana and the girls after being taken over by the spirit. Just when Hakim/Jeeva is about to end the lives of Komal, Lana, Rima, and her newborn, Madhu arrives on the scene and decapitates Hakim. This obviously frees the girls as they finally manage to get out of the hostel and live a normal life. But then the series ends with Nakul killing himself after getting a glimpse of the ghost and Madhu creepily staring at us while sitting beside a heavily injured Arun at the hospital. Clearly all is not right with her, and Jeeva’s ghost is not gone. I think it does reside inside Madhu (at least part of it is there), and we are going to find out more about that if another season of Khauf happens.
